Object Oriented Programming represents a paradigm shift away from the traditional modular programming methodologies that have prevailed since the advent of computers. While today’s computer scientists are undoubtedly clever chaps, the intrinsic concepts underpinning Object Oriented Programming were actually considered almost 2,500 years in the dialogues of Plato!

Now, it is extremely doubtful as to whether the architects of Object Orientated Programming (OOP) were aware of these prior concepts, as the stereotypical computer scientist is not normally renowned for his classical education. However, even if they weren’t aware, there does seem to be a remarkable correlation between the thought processes of Plato and the later day software architects, even separated across the millennia.

Ancient Greek Philosophy

Plato was born in Athens, Greece in the year 428 BCE and was tutored by Socrates (often credited as the father of Western philosophy). However, it is Plato, not Socrates, who is arguably the best known of the ancient Greek philosophers (if not of all philosophers), due in large to his profound influence on modern philosophy through his legacy of prolific writings; 35 dialogues and 13 letters.

While Plato’s writings cover many philosophical subjects, it is his radical metaphysical concepts, developed throughout his many dialogues, that are of particular interest in our comparisons with object oriented programming. Fundamentally, it is Plato’s theory of forms that is directly analogous to the foundations of OOP.

Theory of Forms

Throughout his metaphysical discussions, Plato refers to forms as abstract representations that are templates or patterns for real world objects or characteristics of objects.

By way of example, to explain the concept of a form, Plato discusses the concept of beauty. A flower is beautiful and a picture can also be said to be beautiful, but neither are beauty itself. Plato argues that the form  of true beauty exists independently of the objects that have it, as such we may have a notion of perfect beauty, but can never actually experience it first hand.

In Plato’s parlance, a flower is said to partake of the form of beauty. It’s beautiful, but we never see true beauty. The flower is said to be a particular that inherits its qualities from the forms, one of which is beauty.

The form of true beauty is constant and unchanging, whereas a flower may possess beauty for a while, but ultimately looses it when it withers and dies. Being abstract, forms exist independently of the particulars or real world objects that inherit their qualities.

Heavy stuff at the best of times, let alone for over two millennia ago.

Computer Programming

The Traditional Approach

Computer programs are essentially a list of instructions to be followed in a pre described order by a computer; do A, then do B etc.. A bit like following a cooking recipe step by step.

As computers became more advanced, their associated software programmes also became much longer and quite cumbersome. Quite often, a computer would need to run the same bit of code again and again. So, rather than rewrite this bit of code every time it was required, functions or procedures were written as semi-isolated pieces of code that could be called upon whenever they were required. This helped software develop in a modular fashion, with individual modules being responsible for certain computational procedures.

Object Orientated Programming

Object Orientated Programming took modules to the next level, with the modules becoming self contained pieces of code called classes.

A class is a piece of computer program that serves as a template for the creation of an object in exactly the same way that Plato’s forms were abstract philosophical templates for real world objects. The piece of code, or class, is not the object itself, but like the Platonic form, merely a pattern describing what the object will actually be like and what properties it will have when created. Exactly the same concept as Plato’s, just transposed to a different discipline and separated by 2,500 years!

Similar to Plato’s hierarchical system of forms, these classes or templates can be enhanced. Expanded classes can be created, inheriting all the properties of the parent class, but enhancing it with additional properties to create a new “child” class containing all of it’s parents properties, plus a load more of its own:

   1: // Our template or perfect form of a chair

   2: class Chair

   3: {

   4:     // bits of code to define the chair goes in here

   5: }

   6:

   7:

   8: // New template for a type of chair inheriting properties from the perfect chair form

   9: class OfficeChair extends Chair

  10: {

  11:     // bits of EXTRA code for the office chair goes in here 

  12: }

  13:

  14:

  15: // Create an actual object, or particular of the office chair

  16: $objMyOfficeChair = new OfficeChair();

  17:

  18: // Create an another object, or particular of the office chair

  19: $objMyOtherOfficeChair = new OfficeChair();

This is an extremely simplified example, but hopefully the concept of classes and objects and their associated analogies to the Platonic forms and particulars can be seen.

Nothing is New

So, whilst we may think that we’re the cleverest generation to walk on the face of this planet, it may be worth pausing a while to reflect an try to gain a little humility, as we may often just be taking a new slant on old ideas.

Even the bible, in Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, recognises this:

Nothing is new under the sun. Even the thing of which we say, “See, this is new!” has already existed in the ages that preceded us.

Great scientists and thinkers of the past have also acknowledged this fact. Even Isaac Newton paid homage to the inspiration of his predecessors:

“If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”

Seeking Inspiration

If you’re struggling to come up with an answer to an intransigent problem, or want to find a new way of doing things, perhaps you could do worse than brushing up on your classical education in search of inspiration.

By studying history, even in different disciplines to your own, you may come across ideas that could transpose into your own field of expertise and take you in directions that you would never have dreamed of. They even have a name for the process, they call it the cross fertilisation of ideas.

So, next time you’re a little stuck with a problem, where will you turn to for your inspiration? Plato, Aristotle…

It’s no longer the season to be jolly, but the season to turn over a new leaf, or so custom has it. Whether it be loosing weight, giving up smoking or keeping your bedroom tidy; most people will have a New Year’s resolution or two (at least for the first few weeks).

You can tell it’s the New Year, not by looking at the calendar, or even by the weather outside, but by the television. Not, because we’re constantly being reminded by television programmes of the New Year, but rather more subtly (or not as the case may be) by the type of advertisements that we’re being bombarded with at this time of year.

The television advertisers are capitalising on the fact that we all tend to make some (hopefully) life changing promises to ourselves, that we will invariably fail dismally at, but with a little additional help, and perhaps a little hard earned cash, they purport to be able to help us with.

The obvious examples being nicotine patches (and other products) for those giving up (or attempting to) cigarettes and the plethora of diet programmes after the festive gorging season.

Solutions vs. Resolutions

So, why have I titled this post New Year’s solutions, what’s that all about? Well, a Dutch friend of mine once asked what my New Year’s solutions would be.

Obviously a slight slip in translation, but maybe the term “New Year’s Solutions” is actually a better phrase than the traditional New Year’s resolutions. After all, resolutions are normally made to improve things, or fix the perceived inadequacies or problems in our lives, but it’s the actual solutions that really matter, not the intention, or resolution, to do so.

A Helping Hand

The TV advertisements clearly think they can help us to solve our problems. Only, you need to read the small print at the bottom of the adverts. In case you missed it, here it is again (reproduced by kind permission):

WILLPOWER REQUIRED!

Got it this time? So, if you don’t have any, you’ll just be throwing your money away. But hey, you’ll be fuelling the economy right?

Why Now?

Why, on the first of January every year, should we all suddenly decide to sort our lives out and fix all of those niggling little habits or problems that we think, or are told, we have? Why is no other time of year suitable for this kind of decisive and determined action? Is willpower only available in January due to some strange astrological alignment? I think not!

After all, the New Year is a completely arbitrary date. It’s not even the Winter solstice (21 December), which would make much more sense. After this date, days begin to get longer, the flowers begin to wake up after their winter snooze and things generally begin to perk up, at least they do in the Northern Hemisphere.

Upside Down

If you live in the Southern Hemisphere however, things are altogether more depressing, as the days begin to get shorter and the weather generally colder.

Perhaps the Southern Hemisphere should celebrate it’s New Year’s day on 21 June, the diametrically opposed solstice. After all, they do everything else topsy turvey, like having BBQs on the beach for Christmas diner!

Not only this, but the diet people and nicotine patch brigade would have two chances at the seasonal sales bonanza, one for the Northern Hemisphere’s New Year and one for the Southern Hemisphere‘s, with a consequently improved cash flow for the year.

Chinese New Year

The Chinese have gone one stage further and fully embraced the arbitrary nature of the New Year, as their their New Year doesn’t start on a fixed date, but is linked to the lunar cycle, being the first day of the first lunar month of the Chinese calendar, and falls between 21 January and 20 February.

So, if you follow the traditional western (Gregorian) calendar and find yourself failing with your New Year’s resolutions towards the end of January, you could suddenly come over all Zen like and give yourself a second bite at the cherry with your resolutions (and a second evening’s celebrations) by adopting the Chinese calendar. Alternatively you could just admit defeat until the same time next year.

For the Chinese however, the flexible date for the New Year can either turn out to be an advantage or disadvantage, depending on your perspective, as some years will be longer or shorter than other years.

So, if you expect your New Year’s resolutions to be particularly difficult to accomplish, it may be best to coordinate them with one of the longer years. On the other hand, if you expect to fail miserably with your chosen resolutions, then try and pick a shorter year so you can get the humiliation of your failure over with quicker!

One Day’s as Good as the Next

We all have things in our lives that we probably want to improve or fix, so why wait for New Year?

I haven’t really got any New Year’s resolutions, other than to try and de-clutter, simplify things and become a little more organised. It’s not that I’m disorganised as such, but I just want to be a little more organised; without developing any other excessive Germanic tendencies if possible.

Aren’t these New Year’s resolutions? No, because I was trying to achieve these goals before the New Year. Why should I wait for the New Year?

If you must have a New Year’s resolution though, perhaps it’s best to decide to keep last year’s resolutions (if you can remember that far back) instead of creating a whole new list that you’re not going to achieve and then feel bad about it all year!

Our desire for the illusive paperless office has been around for many years. So, are we any closer to achieving this seemingly impossible dream with recent technological advances, or are we still consigned to emptying the shredder and waste bins every other day?

The concept of the paperless office is certainly nothing new. In 1975, Business Week published an article on “The Office of the Future”. Much of what was predicated in that article has since come true, thanks largely to the release of the now ubiquitous IBM PC in 1981.

However, since the release of the aforementioned PC, rather than decreasing, paper usage in offices doubled in the following 20 years, eventually stabilising around the millennium; hardly a success for the supposed paperless office!

According to the Economist however, since 2001 office paper usage has actually decreased. So, it looks like we’ve finally turned the corner in our paper consumption, but does this mean that we’re close to realising the dream of the paperless office, or do we still have a way to go?

Current Trends

There probably isn’t any primary reason why our paper usage is finally decreasing, but rather many reasons:

• Environmental driving factors are certainly key. We are becoming increasingly aware of our planet’s limited natural resources and are beginning to use them more wisely. Paper comes from trees; so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise that using less paper will mean less trees get cut down.
• Every company tries to minimise its overheads to remain competitive. Reducing paper usage is one such way, as printing on paper costs money.
• The younger generation have been brought up on computers, e-mail and the internet and tend to print less.
• Newer technologies have undoubtedly helped, such as the widespread adoption of broadband internet. Bigger and better monitor technologies, like widescreen LCDs and multiple monitor systems, have made it easier to read and manipulate documents on screen.

Look, No Hands!

My interest in the paperless office was kind of forced upon me. In July 2000 I dived into my neighbour’s swimming pool, breaking my neck and leaving me paralysed from the neck down. Consequently, turning pages or scanning through a book suddenly became quite problematic. If my sanity was to stay intact (some may debate this point), then I clearly had to find alternative ways of doing things.

Scanners and PDFs

Prior to my accident, I was half way through writing my PhD thesis. I had a lot of papers to reference and a logbook full of notes and experimental results. I needed to be able to reference these quickly and easily without having to rely on someone to change pages for me.

Thanks to a cheap scanner and a copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional, I was able to scan all of my key documents and save them in the now common PDF format. I could then grab any of the documents at anytime from my computer’s hard drive.

I now use the scanner and PDF combination on a regular basis to electronically file an array of documents that may need to be referenced in the future; from equipment manuals through to tax returns!

Scanning Alternative

Scanning can be cumbersome or overkill for certain situations. For quick image capture, I have sometimes taken digital photographs of equipment labels for future reference.

Author of the book, The Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss, takes this approach to the next level and takes digital photographs of documents to archive rather than mucking about with a scanner.

How you capture and store information digitally doesn’t really matter, providing it’s quick and convenient and readily accessible at a later date.

Death of the Fax Machine

If the fax machine hasn’t died already, then it’s certainly got an extremely weak pulse and all of it’s relatives are crowded around the bed.

If you need to send a document, just scan it and e-mail it as a PDF attachment. This is essentially all a fax machine does anyway. If the receiving party really needs a paper copy, they can always print one off, although this is obviously not to be encouraged.

Signing Electronic Documents

If someone needs your signature on a document, what’s the difference between signing a paper document and faxing it or attaching your scanned signature to an electronic copy and e-mailing it? None that I can determine, they both get sent down the telephone wire.

So, why not scan your signature and keep it on file somewhere. Next time you need to send a signed document, just paste it in and click send; so much simpler and quicker.

Internet

The internet is an amazing tool to help with the paperless office, but if used unwisely can also conspire against us. How many people regularly print out e-mails as a case in point? They’re electronic, so leave them there; only print them out if absolutely necessary.

Using online banking and direct debits to pay your bills will help reduce your paper consumption as will opting to receive ALL of your bills via e-mail.

Parcel Post

Most delivery companies ask you to sign for parcels on a small PDA carried by the delivery man. Not only does this greatly reduce the amount of paper used, but also allows you to track our parcel’s progress online.

Electronic Books

Electronic books can be downloaded online and read on your computer with free eBook reader software such as Adobe’s Digital Editions. This technology has been available for a while, but unfortunately it’s only recently that publishers have started releasing their offerings (old and new) in this format.

The new Sony eBook Reader allows you to download hundreds of eBooks into one standard paperback sized, lightweight package and read them whenever you want, just like a conventional book. Using new paper like display technology, one charge of the battery can last the equivalent of reading 20 average paperbacks!

The Next Stage?

So, if we’re not quite there yet, what’s stopping us moving forward to the truly paperless office?

There are legal implications relating to the validity of digital signatures on electronic documents, although progress is being made. In the UK, the Law Commission is quoted as saying:

“Digital signatures, scanned manuscript signatures, typing one’s name (or initials), and clicking on a website button are, in our view, all methods of signature which are generally capable of satisfying a statutory signature requirement…”

Paper is comfortable, we’ve grown up with it and it’s hard to kick the habit. Younger generations have less of a problem with this, but it takes time to filter through the system.

If we can manage to wean ourselves off paper, what befits can we look forward to?

• Save space and reduce clutter
• Increase productivity
• Save costs, increase profitability
• Environmentally friendly
• Increase interaction, sharing information online

You may not want to do it all at once, but every little change will have an impact. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day…

Social media, new media, web 2.0; whatever you choose to call it, there are now so many ways of keeping in contact with friends and family and keeping up to date with the latest news and events, that you could spend all day doing just this and not achieving anything productive.

So how do you choose which of the latest new media offerings to adopt, and which are the ones that are likely to stand the test of time and become mainstream?

Who’s Auntie?

In referring to Auntie, I’m actually referring to the BBC, but why Auntie?

Well, for some strange historical reason, here in the UK the BBC is affectionately known as Auntie, or Auntie Beeb.

Why Follow the BBC?

Radio

The BBC have been in broadcasting for an awfully long time, since 1922 in fact, and they are the world’s largest and most respected broadcaster. The BBC have always been keen to adopt new and emerging technologies as transmission media for their news and entertainment offerings.

Television

In 1932 the BBC commenced transmissions on the then new fangled television, at the time having no real concept of what a global and ubiquitous format this would prove to be. In 1967 the they started transmitting television signals in colour and in 1974 added the teletext service to their TV signals.

Internet

Being an early adopter of emerging technologies, the BBC first embraced the internet with an online presence for some of its shows in 1994. Bearing in mind that this was only two years after the public release of the world wide web, this definitely shows their foresight in adopting this new medium.

In December 1997, the BBC officially launched BBC Online, which has gone from strength to strength since, with the website now containing over two million pages and being one of the most visited and popular websites in the world.

Web 2.0

While the term web 2.0 is quite common, its actually very difficult to pin down exactly what it means. In common parlance, it generally refers to the modern, interactive nature of the web, for example social networking sites, blogs, podcasts and RSS feeds.

Since their first foray into the wonderful world wide web, the BBC have been early adopters in many new internet technologies such as RSS, blogs, podcasts and even social media websites.

The BBC obviously do their research before moving into any new area. As such, if the Beeb are adopting a new internet technology, then it’s a pretty safe bet that they’ve thought things through and it has a good chance of becoming mainstream, if not already.

Podcasting

Podcasting is an obvious fit with the BBC and provides them with another useful distribution mechanism for their content, enabling people to catch up with their favourite shows at their own leisure.

Out of all of the new internet technologies, the podcast is probably the best known and most widely adopted, thanks to the ubiquitous iPod. If you’re still struggling to work out what it’s all about though, then my previous post on What is a Podcast? may shed a little light.

RSS News Feeds

RSS feeds are a very useful way of keeping up to date with your favourite websites, without having to check them all individually every day. If you’re not sure what RSS is all about, then my previous post on What is RSS? maybe just what you need.

I’ve been a proponent of RSS feeds for a long time and regularly include them in websites that I develop. While the BBC have provided RSS news feeds for a long time also (where I first encountered RSS), unfortunately RSS feeds still don’t seem to have broken through to mass adoption, despite features being included in all new web browsers allowing you to read them.

Social Media

Some people love it, some people hate it and some people just don’t get it.

I was probably in the latter category; didn’t really understand it, so couldn’t really see the point, until about a year ago when the BBC started putting a little toolbar at the bottom of every article on their news website:

I was immediately intrigued and decided to investigate, on the principle that if the BBC were adopting it, then it’s really something that I should be paying attention to if I didn’t want to get left behind.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon was one of the social networking/bookmarking websites that the BBC included in their new toolbar, so I took the plunge and setup my own profile on the site as an experiment.

Once you’ve set up your profile telling the system what sort of topics you are interested in, the system will suggest new websites that you may like and probably would never have discovered otherwise.

While I haven’t really done much “networking” on this site, I have found it to be an amazing resource for finding new and informative websites.

Twitter

It’s not immediately obvious that the BBC have adopted twitter, but they have. Twitter is a web service that you can use to send short messages of up to 140 characters and is touted as a micro-blogging system, although this belies its true potential.

Twitter has gained popularity because you can use it on your mobile phone with text (SMS) messages and it can also be integrated with your own websites, Facebook or your web browser.

If you subscribe to someone’s twitter feed, like the BBC for example, you can be alerted anytime they post something new. The BBC have numerous twitter feeds, which can act a bit like a personal news ticker service. Some examples of their twitter feeds are:

• BBC News – General
• BBC Business
• BBC Politics
• BBC Science
• BBC Health
• BBC Education

Into the Future

Guaranteed, things in the internet world are going to continue expanding and changing at an alarming rate. If you’re struggling to keep up with all of the latest fads on the internet, then pay the BBC a visit to see what they’re up to.

If the Beeb have adopted the latest internet offering, then it may be well worth investigating it yourself. While they may not get it right every time, they are probably heading in the right general direction.

Procrastination gets a lot of bad press. It’s generally seen as a negative trait, as we’re constantly told not to procrastinate and made to feel guilty if we do. However, as with most things in life, things aren’t always that black and white. Perhaps there are positives to procrastination.

Should we really listen to those bearded psychologist types who like to wear ladies’ underwear; the sort who constantly try to make us feel guilty about procrastination? We all do it, so being made to feel bad about it isn’t going to help matters.

Why don’t we try to see the positive side to procrastination instead? After all, the glass is half full isn’t it, not half empty?

By Definition…

According to the English Dictionary, procrastination is defined as:

The act or habit of procrastinating, or putting off to a future time; delay.

The word procrastination is actually derived from the Latin procrastinatus, from pro meaning “forward” and crastinus meaning “of tomorrow”.

Now, the word pro is normally considered as a positive. If you’re pro something, then you’re for that something as opposed to against it.

So, pro-crastination surely means that we’re for crastination as opposed to against it. As crastination is derived from the Latin meaning tomorrow, this follows that procrastinators are looking forward to the future!

One of the greatest labour saving inventions of today is tomorrow – Vincent T. Foss

By general definition then, procrastination isn’t negative at all, it’s society’s perception of procrastination that’s negative. Procrastination is merely doing something tomorrow instead of today.

Super Efficiency isn’t Normal

In the media, we’re constantly being sold the idea of how to improve our efficiency and not procrastinate. There are books, courses, blogs, you name it, the list seems never ending. But do we really need them?

You can’t be 100% efficient all the time; it’s not normal (unless you’re German or an MBA Havard type uber nerd).

Only Robinson Crusoe had everything done by Friday – Author Unknown

Real people (like the ones with lives) hate those super efficient types, they make us look pathetic and ineffectual. Remember the school swat, Billy No-mates? We don’t want to turn out like that, we need to have balance in our lives (with friends) and procrastination is a perfect way to achieve that balance.

Procrastination helps to prevent burn out, it’s nature’s way of getting us to slow down and take a breath. Procrastinators get the job done eventually, but they also manage to beat their high score on Quake in the process and have a few beers with their friends.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

Positive Procrastination

Procrastination has lots of positives, you just need to know where to look.

By procrastinating you give yourself much more time to think.  During this time your subconscious will be processing possible alternatives, leading to a much more considered and well thought out solution to your problem. Rushing leads to mistakes!

By procrastinating you give time for the dynamics of a situation to change or settle down, allowing you to take the new dynamics into account when you get around to doing your job, or maybe it would even save you the hassle of having to do the job anyway.

The two rules of procrastination:  1) Do it today.  2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow – Author Unknown

Projects always run a bit better if there’s a little bit of pressure; a sense of urgency. Getting the job done straight away can’t help this, but with a little bit of procrastination, a sense of urgency can be generated and your mind will be much more focused on the task in hand.

My Name is Richard and I’m a Procrastinator

Just because you’re a procrastinator doesn’t mean you can’t achieve things and have a successful life. I’m a procrastinator and proud of it and have no plans to change, yet I feel I’ve achieved quite a lot and hopefully will continue to do so, just not today…

Sometimes though I do have the occasional bout of super efficiency, which in one instance landed me in a spot of bother. I had a boss (German as it happens) that liked to have everything planned and organised to the ‘N’ th degree (as they do), he also frequently liked to change his mind.

On this particular occasion my project went perfectly according to plan, like a well oiled machine. I had 100 newly designed digital radio cards sitting on the shelf, tested and ready to ship. Only my boss had changed his mind in the interim period and had failed to communicate his change in direction with me.

The result was I got in hot water for having 100 cards sitting on a shelf that were now surplus to requirements. Clearly I couldn’t win, I thought my boss would have been impressed with my German like efficiency, maybe even promotion? Obviously I was deluded. Procrastination would have prevented this whole fiasco.

Procrastinate and Feel Good About it

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow – Mark Twain

And is if you’re not convinced already, just remember:

• Procrastinators take advantage of the latest events
• Procrastinators have more time to think about solutions
• Procrastinators don’t suffer from burn out
• Procrastinators get high scores in Quake/Doom…

So next time you feel yourself procrastinating, don’t feel guilty about it, that’s counter productive. Embrace it! Look at all the positives and spare a thought for all those lonely efficient types working their backsides off.

Footnote: While I had the idea for this post a week or so ago, a competition post on the problogger website prompted me to get the post completed quickly so that I could enter it in the competition. A bit ironic really for a post on procrastination, but hey, rules are there to be broken…

Most of us make fundamental decisions in life based on trying to achieve a single fixed goal, but if you’re prepared to look a little further unexpected benefits can often be found.

Any decision or choice you make in life is likely to have direct and indirect consequences. In making your decision your are going to weigh up the pros and and cons of the obvious and predictable consequences. However, there will always be something you hadn’t thought of, that with a little work or change of attitude, may be turned to your benefit.

These secondary or tangential benefits are not necessarily be monetary and may present themselves in various guises that aren’t immediately obvious. Some you will need to seek out, others are already there, but perhaps you just didn’t see them as such.

Unpredictability

Isaac Newton is famously accredited with the saying;

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

While this was describing physical forces, it has many resonances with our “actions” or decisions in life insomuch as anything we do will precipitate some “reaction”, be it positive or negative, or predicted or unpredicted.

While we hopefully try to predict the reactions to our decisions, unpredictable consequences are inevitable. The mathematical analogy to which might be chaos theory, where one tiny event can result in vastly disproportionate consequences.

So if we accept that anything we do will have unforeseen consequence, potentially opening up new possibilities, the trick then becomes seeking these opportunities out, or learning to recognise them, and then trying to capitalise on them.

Secondary Benefits

While achieving your primary goals should be immediately obvious, recognising secondary benefits in your endeavours may be less so.

By way of example…

A few years ago I was talking to my gardener George about websites. George asked “How do you make money from websites?”, to which I explained “one of two ways, you either sell something directly, like a product or service, or you provide free content and make money from advertising.”

Out of this conversation the Plant Advice website was born. Using my technical skills to develop the website and George’s horticultural knowledge to write the content, our ultimate aim was to generate income from advertising.

We have now achieved that aim, the website is beginning to generate a small income for George, which was the primary goal, and I had fun developing the website, but where were the secondary benefits?

The first benefit came from the content management system (CMS) that I developed for the project, which has now formed the basis of most websites that I develop.

The second, more subtle benefit came from having developed a website that attracts over 10,000 visitors a month, which is a very useful marketing tool to demonstrate my design skills and abilities.

The third benefit was less obvious, but highlights the issue of looking deeper into things to see how you can capitalise on your assets.

Last year I went to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for the first time, some photos of which I added to the Plant Advice website in a new gallery section. The tickets cost £40 each!

This year I went to the RHS Hampton Court Flower Show. Only I didn’t pay for the tickets this time! No, I didn’t sneak in, but managed to get press passes on the back of the Plant Advice website. Not only did I save £50 in ticket costs, but went on a day that was only open to the press, so didn’t get jostled by the thronging crowds.

Being press I was also able to go into the show gardens to take photographs, and was offered a glass of Pimms in the Homebase garden and a glass of Sherry in the Croft garden by two rather attractive young ladies. Result!

I would never have considered this possibility when I set up the website, so while the website is achieving its primary aim and has a few secondary benefits which have been exploited for a while, the Hampton Court trip was a real tangential benefit. Roll on Chelsea next year…

Silver Linings

While you should be looking for secondary benefits in the positive things you do, when things go wrong there can often be tangential benefits that you would never have encountered otherwise, or as the old saying goes:

“Every cloud has a silver lining.”

This is easier said than done, as when things go wrong, it’s often very difficult to see any positives, but if you can try and find the positives in bad situations, then you’ll probably lead a  happier and  more contented life than your grumpy counterparts.

By way of example…

In July 2000 I dived into my next door neighbour’s swimming pool, breaking my neck and leaving me paralysed from the neck down. As a further consequence of which, my marriage broke down and my wife moved to mid Wales with my young son. Not, generally speaking, a very positive situation.

While I’ve now come to terms with my situation and got on with life, it may still be considered as far from ideal, so where’s the positive in all this, where’s the tangential benefit?

My son! I now get to see my son for a week at a time for school holidays and half term holidays. So how’s that a benefit? Well not much in it’s own right, as I guess many estranged fathers are in similar situations with visitations in this respect. However, because of my circumstances, I no longer work for a living, which means my son has 100% of my time when he’s with me.

That’s a luxury that most fathers who work full-time for a living don’t get, so I consider that a blessing and cherish every moment with my son.

Half Empty or Half Full?

So, are you the sort of person who’s glass is half empty or half full? Are you going to try and find the positives in situations and try and seek out secondary or tangential benefits, or let them pass by and whinge about how everybody else seems to get all the opportunities?

Opportunities are all around you, you just need to open your eyes to the possibilities. Carpe diem!

The first time you meet someone new one of their opening questions is likely to be “What do you do?” The answer to which is only ever expected to be singular.

Why, in such a supposedly enlightened and forward thinking society, is it assumed that we can only do or excel at a single thing? Isn’t this limiting our natural potential by conditioning everybody to think they can only be good at one thing?

Based on your answer to the above question, you are likely to be stereotyped and pigeon holed by your newly met acquaintance, and will probably have to work very hard to convince them otherwise of your multifaceted personality.

Renaissance Man

Imagine you travelled back in time to Italy in the late 1400s to a grand social function and were introduced to Leonardo da Vinci. Would you break the ice with such a banal question as; “So, what do you do for a living?”

If you did, what would his answer be? “Oh, I’m a painter… and a sculptor, and an inventor and a scientist and an anatomist and an architect and an engineer and a mathematician and a botanist and a writer and a musician, why, what do you do?”

It would probably be easier to just classify him as a polymath, the true archetypal renaissance man or homo universalis!

However, in modern society, it’s difficult to comprehend that anyone like Leonardo could exist today. Perhaps it’s because our level of knowledge has moved on so much that it is so much harder to excel at numerous things, but perhaps society also doesn’t want us to or isn’t capable of accepting it.

More and More about Less and Less

I once attended a university lecture from one of my professors entitled “All about nothing”. His chosen subject was scanning electron microscopes and in particular the vacuum conditions required for them. He was becoming increasingly specialised, knowing more and more about vacuums (essentially nothingness), with his ultimate aim to know everything about nothing!

This certainly seems to be the way that society drives us, to slowly narrow down our field of expertise, while we know more and more about less and less until we become a specialist or guru in our micro field.

Being a specialist can have many advantages, it can also have significant drawbacks. While times are good you can probably command quite a high salary. However, if times change, or you just fancy moving on, then your specialisation may work against you as there will be fewer potential job openings, or you could price yourself out of the market.

Jack of All Trades

However, if you adopt the alternative approach and try to tackle a broad spectrum of activities, you’re invariably classed as a jack of all trades (master of none), which is not usually meant in a positive way.

It’s probably difficult to achieve the same proportionate level of expertise across the board as Leonardo did 600 years ago due to our rapid advancement in knowledge. But having a good practical working knowledge in a variety of disciplines should be considered a tremendous asset and not necessarily frowned upon.

Applying the 80/20 Rule

A jack of all trades doesn’t have to mean you are just mediocre at everything. While you can spend years learning all there is to know about a particular topic, you can probably learn 80% of what you practically need to know in 20% of the time. The rest becomes diminishing returns.

May be it then comes down to different levels of mastery. At what point do you go from being a specialist to a master to just plain mediocre?

Project Management

Most projects traditionally involve numerous disciplines, which could include graphic design, product design, mechanical design, electronic design and software design, to name but a few.

Who would make the best project manager; the computer guru, the artistic product designer or someone with a good understanding of all disciplines, but isn’t a “guru” in any particular one?

Surely an ideal candidate would be our “jack of all trades”, who could communicate with all teams with a good understanding of the challenges they are facing, while retaining an overview of the complete project.

Innovation

Innovation often comes from the cross fertilisation of ideas between disciplines. Wouldn’t it follow then that a person with a diverse background of knowledge would be better placed to see these opportunities and capitalise on them?

Leonardo was renowned for his inventions, but it was probably his broad range of knowledge across so many disciplines that inspired him and enabled him to visualise them as real possibilities.

Web Design

Web design is a trade that doesn’t attract the same technical kudos as does say a computer programmer, or a graphic designer for example, but is considered a jack of all trades. After all, little Johnny in his bedroom can design websites with Microsoft Frontpage can’t he?

However, good web site design requires quality graphic design coupled with software programming, two skills that are usually considered at odds with each other. So not a job for a specialist, unless working as a member of a multidisciplinary team.

Company Leaders

How many company leaders and entrepreneurs are specialists in a particular field. Not many I suspect. While Bill Gates might be a reasonable programmer, that’s not the reason he was the world’s richest man for so many years running. Microsoft is full of technical gurus, but Gate’s understanding of all aspects of the business is what got him to the top and kept him there for so long.

Specialist vs Generalist

So, which is your preference, do you want to know more and more about less and less and risk becoming too specialised and insular, or would you prefer to broaden your horizons and become a more rounded and flexible generalist?

After all, they say that variety is the spice of life, so would this lead to a happier and more contented existence, or is that just too much to hope for…